We’re here at a studio in Manhattan shooting the Minimalist videos for the Fall. The smells coming from this ktichen would make you think that it’s a cool, crisp October day, but it’s at least 90 degrees outside. Anyway, we’ll be be checking in throughout the afternoon to give you a sneak peak at what’s coming up in the fall.

The first dish if the day: Stuffed Cabbage (cabbage leaves stuffed with a mixture of onion, grated parnsip and carrot, ground lamb, and rice). Check out my cabbage rolling technique: a study in concentration.

I’m not entirely sure what Jackie and I had for dinner on Friday night. I am sure that it was delicious, felt great in the mouth and was fun to eat (with a spoon – the best tool), and I’m pretty certain about what it was not: it wasn’t pasta cooked like a risotto, because I didn’t gradually add liquid and keep stirring; it wasn’t fideuà (the paella-like noodle dish of Catalunya), because I didn’t brown the pasta or use a sofrito or leave the pan uncovered. It was … well, let me tell you how I made it, and you can tell me what it was.

It came together as I was cooking, and it started with a yen for pasta. In the house was a farmers’ market treasure: small, firm new-season potatoes. There are Ligurian dishes of pasta and potatoes, often with green beans and pesto, and these are delicious, but I didn’t feel like making pesto (even in a food processor, which is really the most sensible way to do it) and, anyway, there were no beans. There were juicy new onions, though, and little Spanish chorizos – the ounce-and-a-half ones that come four to a vacuum-sealed pack – and parsley and a bit of chicken stock. And of course many shapes of pasta from the drawer that Jackie refers to as our pastateca. Oh – and half a cup of pan gravy from a roast chicken.

It seems like a good thing: Lay’s–the potato chip people–have a mobile farm set up in Times Square to help educate people about where their food comes from. It’s cute. There’s the “mobile farm” itself, with live plants and nice baskets of vegetables next to each one to help identify what’s actually growing; there’s a section where you can have your picture taken with a farmer (or at least someone wearing a straw hat); and there are a couple of very nice people handing out plastic cups with basil seeds inside so you can grow your own fresh herbs at home.

Sadly I was alone at the basil handout table, and the mobile farm wasn’t exactly packed either. The crowd was swarming a guy under a sign that read “Proudly supporting America’s potato farmers” who was handing out bags of Lays chips. The best of intentions I suppose, but if they really wanted to get people into planting basil they probably should have left the free chips back at the farm.

[Natascha and I sometimes run together, and she and a few other running buddies decided to have a vegan July (no, I did not join them). They all have had interesting experiences, but Natascha was focused, oddly enough, on her daily coffee. When I heard she was trying every non-dairy milk she could find, I asked her to write up her experiences. Voila – mb]

Inspired by some vegan ultra athletes, I decided to go on a vegan adventure for the month of July. Looking at what I ate it seemed like the hardest things to give up would be butter, the milk in my cappuccino, and butter. I have since found that it’s easy to live without butter. (Where you would use a tablespoon, you now substitute half an avocado. Clearly I won’t be shedding any pounds during this experiment.) The two percent milk cappuccino is a bit more of a challenge.

My initial reaction to all of the milk substitutes was pretty much “ick.” But it’s amazing: you can get used to anything. The second is better than the first; by the third, well, you can live with it. Generally, you will probably be happier if your palate is a little on the sweet side. (Mine is not—I’m happier in the land of the tart and bitter.) Though I chose unsweetened and unflavored “milks” to compare, they are all definitely sweeter than their dairy sister. They are all perfectly good in pancakes or cooking, and, amazingly, they all make acceptable foam for cappuccino.

[Bernie is an engaging and experienced sommelier in Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s group of New York restaurants. After he’d turned me on to great bargains at Matsugen, ABC Kitchen, and Jean-Georges, I asked him if there was anything he wanted to blog about. Turned out he was leaving town for a couple of events … and here’s his report. – mb]

The Food and Wine Classic in Aspen sees several thousand attendees descend onto the tiny (and tony) town (altitude, 8,000 ft.) to hobnob with a legion of familiar names and faces from worlds of food and wine. There are 30-plus seminars on cooking over the course of four days, and no fewer than 26 different seminars about wine, beer, and spirits, including a few “reserved” tastings.

Some of the best events, however, were not on the official program listing. I was invited to – actually I stumbled upon – one of these, simply by being at the right place at the right time (this happened to be 2 a.m., while I was still adjusting not only to the drinking but to the altitude). This was an impromptu brown bag blind tasting challenge in the basement with about a dozen people including my friends Aldo Sohm, Paul Greco, Brett Zimmerman, Paolo Domeneghetti, Brad Groper, Allison Domeneghetti, and Jose Andres, who had just finished carving a leg of Iberico ham for the crowd. This is a pretty serious group of tasters in broad daylight, but how good are you long after midnight after working all day and drinking for hours?

Am I wrong to think that only a handful of farmers who come to Manhattan Greenmarkets grow artichokes? I’ve seen them only at Maxwell’s stand, but surely there must be other growers too, no?

Whatever the case, that’s where Jackie bought some lovely little ones last week, along with a bag of nice dense new-season potatoes, a bunch of thyme and some juicy onions. Her shopping bag contained our entire dinner, apart from the salt, pepper, olive oil and smoked prosciutto (speck). With the oven pre-heating to 375 degrees, we first cut off the tops of the artichokes, stripped them down to the pale, tender inner leaves and pared the stems (dipping them and holding them in lemon-juiced water as we worked). Then we par-steamed the potatoes – just for four or five minutes to give them a head start – sliced some speck and cut an onion into wedges. All of this, we tossed with olive oil, thyme and salt and pepper in a baking dish and roasted until the artichoke hearts and potatoes were tender and lightly browned.

Apart from the adventure of trimming the artichokes (see this: though ours were far smaller, the idea is the same), this was hardly cooking at all, and it made a hell of a dinner. Although the focus was on the vegetables, I have to say that the crisp roasted speck was irresistible; we’ll use twice as much next time. Maybe three times as much.

We had a dinner party last night for a group of friends who enjoy their wine. I’m glad to report that we more than did our bit to save the forests of Portugal, Spain, Italy, and northern Africa. The vintages we selected all came in bottles sealed with cork, which is made from the bark of a species of oak.

But with the increasing popularity of screw caps and plastic “corks,” the real cork industry is threatened, and along with it, more than four million acres of forest. In addition to providing some 100,000 jobs, cork forests combat global warming and provide habitat for wildlife. Portugal’s Montada Forest is home to hundreds of species of birds and also habitat for the Iberian lynx, one of the world’s most endangered animals. Apcor, the Portuguese Cork Association says that cork is compostable and produces 24 times less carbon than the aluminum in screw caps—if you need another reason to pop a cork and raise a glass.